“Salty Dog” by Procol Harum

Keith Reid wrote the words and Gary Brooker the music, and "A Salty Dog" became the lead single from Procol Harum's 1969 album of the same name, with Brooker singing it too. He wrote the tune while the band were on tour in Switzerland, and Reid's lyric follows sailors pushing across uncharted waters as the crew dies around them.

The string arrangement carries an echo of Chopin, and Claes Johansen, who wrote the band's biography, says organist Matthew Fisher sat the recording out, with Robin Trower contributing only an acoustic guitar buried deep in the mix. The single stopped at 44 in the UK, and the song resurfaced in 1972 on Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.